


This is Probably a Terrible Idea

by statamater



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, I am not great at plot, Jim and Spock are being ridiculous, M/M, McCoy at least has the sense his mother gave him, Mind Meld, POV: reboot!Kirk, Slash, a little plot, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:25:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statamater/pseuds/statamater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Getting Spock to freak out and throttle him was almost too much fun; partially because of the revenge and the nostalgia of it, but mostly because of the cheap thrill. "</p><p>Pretty much everyone, given enough time, will want to screw Jim Kirk - species, gender, or previous sexual identity notwithstanding. So why the hell is it taking Spock so long to notice him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Наверно, это ужасная идея](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11869686) by [Northpoleowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northpoleowl/pseuds/Northpoleowl)



> I have no idea what I am doing. Sorry?

It’s not that Kirk had ever been confused by Spock’s behavior. That is to say, it’s not as if it was entirely unexplainable- his absolute asshattery during that Kobayashi Maru situation, his lip-curling distain when Pike promoted Kirk, him marooning Kirk on a fucking iceberg - all of it could be the result of Vulcan cultural issues combined with a healthy dose of good old fashioned Human jealousy. At least, that’s what he thought until that other Spock, the older, more problematic one, put his hand on Kirk’s face and his fingers in Kirk’s brain and he finally _saw._  

Spock had a _crush_ on him.

Kirk almost laughed out loud, right there, in the cave. Spock wasn’t just a cold, calculating, ambitious pointy-eared bastard- he was a cold, calculating, ambitious pointy-eared bastard with a raging hard-on. And really, who could blame him? Kirk was damn cute, always had been. (And if older, more problematic Spock’s memories were anything to go on, he was only going to get cuter.) He was a little surprised hadn’t seen it before. You could say a lot of things about James T. Kirk, but no one could call him modest. Or picky, actually, so it’s really no shock, even to Kirk himself, that he doesn’t even think twice about taking advantage of the situation. He would have done that even if Spock wasn’t far above the cut in terms of sexual attractiveness. (Kirk can’t decide if the pompous attitude drops Spock in the rankings or if it’s actually a bonus). In any case, this wasn’t just going to be easy- it was going to be enjoyable. Really, really enjoyable.

The other Spock told him that this Spock was vulnerable after the loss of Vulcan. Once that was combined with the all-too-obvious compromised emotions Spock had about Kirk, Kirk figured Spock was probably just wracked with guilt about abandoning him on that frozen wasteland. Once they got back on board, it would take one good hard blue-eyed stare, maybe two, to turn the whole thing around. Spock would be overcome with joy to see that Kirk had survived; possibly even impressed by Kirk’s survival skills and his ability to think under pressure. Then Spock would surrender his command, they could get on with saving Pike’s ass, and Kirk could probably ride that wave right into some lovely groping in the turbolift. 

This was going to be the best mission _ever_.

Kirk grinned his way through the scramble back to the _Enterprise_ \- finding the Starfleet base and repairing the transporter, older and more problematic Spock’s almost suicidal determination to stay on the frozen planet (Kirk grinned even more at that, Spock is nothing if not consistent). He wasn’t even really fazed by Scotty’s trip through the water tubes. Nothing was going to get him down. Nope. James Kirk was going back to the _Enterprise,_ then he was going to find that seriously emotionally compromised Vulcan and tell him to get the hell out of the captain’s chair (and into his bed.)

But then it all went to shit.

Spock didn’t even seem a little bit happy to see him. For God’s sake, Kirk had found an actual genius, probably two actual geniuses if he included the older, more problematic Spock, they had collectively leapt Starfleet technology ahead at least a decade, and had then tested an experimental technique _on_ _themselves_. And he did this all to get back here, to his ship and his crew, and did that green-blooded fuck even so much as lift an eyebrow? No. He actually seemed kind of annoyed. He certainly didn’t give Scotty the adulation he deserved.  This was just maddening. 

Fine, Kirk thought as Spock gave Scotty the third degree. You want to keep playing this game? Not a great idea to play hard to get with a guy who really loves to get beaten up, and Kirk really actually does _love_ to get beaten up. Once he thought about it, he realized doing it the hard way would be even better than a tearful reunion and a game of grab-ass in the corridor. 

And, as he expected, getting Spock to freak out and throttle him was almost _too_ much fun; partially because of the revenge and the nostalgia of it, but mostly because of the cheap thrill. 

But then, _then,_ just when it all seemed like it might actually go the way it is supposed to, they get on the transporters to beam down to Nero’s ship and Uhura walks in and she’s cute as hell and sure maybe she’s here to say goodbye and then- _holy hell she is right in Spock’s face and there is kissing._ Kirk couldn’t stop staring. What is Spock _doing?_ And that was when Kirk finally admitted that although getting Spock to show emotion had been relatively easy, this whole seduction game was going to be much harder than he had anticipated. 

He really didn’t need that smug little look from Uhura either. 

So they save Pike, kill Nero, the Universe doesn’t end, Spock meets his more problematic self, Universe doesn’t end again, and life goes on roughly the way it is supposed to. Spock, to the surprise of everyone except Kirk (and Kirk supposes he’ll just have to get used to that feeling) rejects the logical choice to rebuild Vulcan and joins the crew. At first Kirk thinks maybe he’ll get another shot at the hot and heavy reunion, but several very dangerous missions go by and Spock doesn’t show any signs of further, uh, emotional compromise. Kirk starts to doubt his initial assessment, and figures that despite older and more problematic Spock’s flood of extremely “compromising” memories, maybe this Spock is just not wired that way. Plus, it’s one thing to have an encounter with a senior officer during an emergency situation when you’re both only temporary crew. It’s another thing entirely to pursue your subordinate during a five-year exploratory mission.  Although Spock is not as enthusiastic a first officer as Kirk would have wished for, he has at least gotten the stick halfway out of his ass, and he’s turning into a pretty good guy to be around. Kirk decides the best thing to do, in the interests of the great friendship they are supposedly destined to share, would be to ignore that whole mind-sharing session down in the cave. 

Well, not all of it- that would be impossible, even for Jim Kirk, who’s basically got fucking gold medals in denial. This is literally decades of memories involving someone who is basically himself and someone who looks very much like Commander Spock romping through the universe on a ship that looks very much like the ship Starfleet Command has just signed over to him, so he’d be lying if he said it didn’t affect him. And he’d be lying again if he said he didn’t enjoy the effect it had. First of all, all the memories make him almost instantly like Spock more, which, by all accounts, has made life on the _Enterprise_ better for everyone. Second of all, these memories seem to involve pretty much everyone on the ship in one way or another, and Kirk isn’t about to pretend that the stuff he remembers about his new crew hasn’t made him seem like the most astute Captain in the history of the universe. 

So, most of it is just fine. 

But after a few weeks turns into a few months, and the dust of Nero’s attack has settled and the remaining Vulcans have been safely set down on their new colony,  after they have had their first encounters in this new post-genocide and timelines-intersecting world and Kirk has started to feel like he actually deserves the post of Captain, that’s when the more dangerous memories start to make themselves known.

At first it is just flashes of emotion, like _deja-vu_ but with teeth. Apprehension about certain missions, instant revulsion at the sound of a certain voice, an odd reaction to a pair of brown fuzzy slippers a diplomat leaves behind in her room. These are overwhelming but largely short-lived.

Then he starts having dreams. Some of them are oddly prescient - he knows this is his mind mixing the present he knows with the possible future he could have had and spitting half-truths back at him. Some of them are useful. Some are hilarious. But many of them are heartbreaking: a Captain Kirk he can never be, a man who knows his father, who is full of charm and empathy but without the impulsiveness. Spock loved that man. Kirk is not that man. 

And then, just because his neural system is a cruel bitch, his dreams turn downright dirty - Spock, half clothed, his chest angular and flushed green; Spock fully unclothed, the bone of his hip pressed to Kirk’s thigh; Spock completely and utterly undone, his hands latched around Kirk’s throat, growling, deep in his chest, _oh, Jim, please._ Kirk wakes up in a sweat. He starts his day with cold showers. 

 _It will be easier,_ he said. _Emotional transference is an effect of the mind meld,_ he said.

Fucking understatement of the year.


	2. Chapter 2

After six months of suffering in silence, except for occasional and entirely unsatisfying encounters with random aides, Kirk does the only logical thing he could possibly do. He decides he is going to seduce Spock, Starfleet fraternization regs be damned.

This, surprisingly, does not go according to plan.

He starts slow and in the usual way. He spends all his off hours on the bridge or down with Scotty, wherever Spock is more likely to be. He pays undue attention in meetings and labors over all the reports. He lets the rest of the crew talk amongst themselves in his presence rather than giving in to his own Jim Kirk urge to boast loudly and live large.  And he behaves himself, even when they visit that one planet and it turns out it’s the middle of their fertility festival and he could justify tomcatting around as an actual diplomatic mission. He learns several things for his effort. He learns that Spock does, in fact, have a sense of humor, and that he takes an almost perverse glee in a well reasoned argument, a well timed move, or a pithy one-liner. He also learns that Spock, despite not understanding the logic of making small talk, will gladly listen at length to the chatter on the bridge: Chekov’s endless sexual exploits,  Sulu trying to explain the difference between foil and saber, Uhura debating grammar with anyone in whatever language they care to speak with her. Spock's happiness during these discussions is quiet, almost private, and Kirk would never have noticed it if he himself hadn’t been being so reserved. One day after Chekov told a particularly ridiculous story involving the time he discovered that Nurelapods are sequential hermaphrodites, Kirk looked back to see Spock smiling down into his console, and Kirk could feel the pleasure at simple company rolling off of him. After that he and Spock spend many hours sitting together, silently, listening to everyone else talk. It is fascinating.

So Kirk starts to suggest they hang out more outside of working hours, pushing his overtures just to the boundary of plausible deniability. He asks Spock to sit with him at meals. He drops hints about bars they could frequent on shore leave. When Pike sends him a case of Romulan ale to celebrate six months of successful missions, Kirk invites everyone to his quarters and cracks that sucker wide open. This round of effort brings new lessons: first, Spock doesn’t drink alcohol, and second, he doesn’t flirt. At all. This is very frustrating.

Now, Kirk can take a hint. Despite being headstrong about pretty much everything else in existence and having an overabundance of charm, Kirk has never pressed the issue when it comes to sex. The universe is a wide and wondrous place - there is no need to force consent when so many others will freely give it. He would not go further with his plan if he felt Spock was completely uninterested. But Spock’s behavior isn’t rejection - it is… Kirk doesn’t know what it is. He would say it was indifference, but that would imply coldness. As time passed, Spock has actually become quite pleasant, downright convivial in his own Vulcan way, and not just with Kirk but with everyone. The version of Spock that Kirk first met, that seething mass of distain, has gone. What Kirk cannot tell is what kind of man has taken his place. 

If Kirk is really honest with himself, and he is very rarely honest with himself because _fuck that noise,_ but if he is honest, he would say he just can’t get a read on Spock at all. 

He knows from what little he saw of Spock with Uhura that Spock isn’t uninterested in sex in general - although after some time with the two of them Kirk concludes that that romance, if it was anything like a romance, was short-lived. Uhura herself never speaks of it, and Spock certainly wouldn’t, but Kirk sees them together many times over the months and there is never any close contact of any kind. Spock is as kind and agreeable with her as he is with all of the rest of the human crew: engaged in conversation, smugly amused at times, occasionally condescending. And despite being, quietly and privately, overjoyed when it happens, Kirk isn’t really under the impression that Spock left Uhura because of him. 

In fact, quite the opposite. He begins to wonder if Spock left Uhura for the same reason he is ignoring Kirk’s Olympic level flirting: that Spock is Vulcan, and Vulcans don’t… _fraternize_.

He recognizes this idea for what it is, grasping at straws, mostly out of desperation and not a little hubris, but he really can’t get his mind around it any other way. He starts to compile all the data he has on Vulcan sexual practices. Kirk has never seen Spock engage in anything approaching lascivious behavior other than that one day in the transporter room where Uhura kissed him. In fact, other than that day, he has never seen any Vulcan, anywhere, do anything remotely sexual. This gives Kirk hope. Maybe Spock actually just doesn’t understand what exactly Kirk is offering. Maybe he’s just not really used to thinking of himself as the sort of person to whom others would be attracted. And even more than that- although the memories Problematic Spock gave him demonstrate, quite clearly, that at least some versions of Spock are not adverse to physical expressions of love, he doesn’t know how extraordinary that expression is for Vulcans generally. There are some planets, entire galaxies even, where gender and sex taboos still exist, and some where casual sex, of any kind, is frowned upon and non-procreative sex is all-but nonexistant. Maybe Vulcans are really, really old fashioned?  Kirk concludes he doesn’t know fuck-all about Vulcan sexual customs. His regular skills of seduction are not honed to deal with these circumstances. He needs more information.

So James Kirk does what any reasonable man would do if he found himself in this situation. He goes to see his doctor.

He finds McCoy restocking one of the exam rooms. 

“Hey Bones!”

“Jim, I’m busy right now, so if you need something, I suggest you come right out and ask for it.”

“Hey, now, can’t a guy just drop in on his friend?” McCoy doesn’t bother to answer, but the way he shoves the next box of supplies onto the shelf tells Kirk that no, a guy can not just drop in on his friend, the doctor, at work, especially when they live on a ship with fewer than 500 people. There is a _time_ and a _place_.

“Fine,” says Kirk. “You win. What do you know about Vulcans?”

McCoy doesn’t even turn around. “Vulcans- slanted eyebrows, touch telepathy, recently endangered.” 

“No, I mean, what do you _know_ about Vulcans?

McCoy puts down the box of hypo cartridges and looks at Kirk. “Jim, it seems to me you are asking me to divulge information of a delicate nature, when we both know full well that I’m a gentleman.”

Jim snorts.

“A _gentleman.”_

“I would never dream of impeaching your virtue,”says Kirk. McCoy continues to look at him.  “But this is important.”  

“Fine. Take a seat.” McCoy picks up a hypo and loads an anti-viral cartridge. Kirk recognizes the mustard yellow of a full-spectrum STI serum.

“No, no, nothing like that!” Kirk pushes McCoy’s hand away.  “I just want to know, you know, are they, uh…” Suddenly Kirk finds this to be incredibly difficult. He has never actually asked McCoy about sex before, not in any serious way. Usually Kirk just has a lot of it and McCoy doesn’t want to discuss it at all, except to protest very loudly about the possibility that Kirk’s dick might just fall right off. Whether he thinks this would be from overuse or disease, Kirk isn’t quite sure. 

“Spit it out, son. I’m understaffed here and I’ve got grunt work to be getting on with.” McCoy gestures with the hypo again.

“Right, ok, sure,” Kirk ducks his head, instinctively shielding his neck.  “I just, uh… look, do you think they are like… open about sex and stuff?”

“Vulcans?”

“I mean, I know they have babies and whatnot, but do they, _like_ having sex? For fun?” This is as articulate as Kirk can bring himself to be. 

McCoy is from an old Georgia family and it is never more obvious than when he is radiating fatherly disapproval. “You know, all of this could have been addressed if you had bothered to take even one cultural sensitivity course.”  Kirk waves his hand but McCoy will not be deterred. “Seriously, I know you were determined to make good on your promise to graduate in three years, and courses had to be skipped, but it seems to me there are certain species norms that an aspiring Starfleet captain should know.” 

“I make do just fine.”

“Which is another reason I find this so disturbing - are you, James T. Kirk, actually asking _me_ about non-Terran sexual practices?”

“Not all of them. Just, uh, you know, Vulcans.”

McCoy laughs. “It’s just a bit rich, coming from a cadet voted Most Likely to Create New Alien Life-“

“People were impressed with my essays in Interspecies Genetics.“

“-whose powers of seduction helped him beat an unbeatable test-“

“No one ever proved _anything_.“

“You know when I told my advisor we were roommates, he immediately signed me up for bimonthly anti-viral hypo injections, despite knowing, by virtue of an actual bona-fide medical education, that most sexual diseases can’t be contracted simply by living with someone who has one?”

“Bones, I had no idea you were this judgmental,” says Kirk.

“I had no idea you were this ignorant, ” says McCoy.

Kirk shifts. “Not a lot of Vulcans in Iowa, or at the Academy, for that matter.”

McCoy folds his arms.  “Why the sudden interest? Worried about their ability to populate their new planet?”

“Not exactly.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Kirk sits on the exam table. His legs swing in the air.

McCoy frowns, thinking. “Look, I don’t really know much. Vulcans are pretty private as a rule. You’d have to ask someone who actually did a rotation on Vulcan for any real detail - I think we even have someone on the staff who-“

“No,” Kirk says. “Just you.”

McCoy expels air through his nose. “Fine. I make no promises about the completeness of this information, but from what I’ve been told, they seem to engage in sex at pretty much the standard rate, although I imagine it’s with much more reserve and candor than some people in this room.” Kirk rolls his eyes. “They have contraception methods, which tells me they probably do it for fun as well as business, and they aren’t all that different from humans in terms of anatomy or genetics- as you could probably have guessed from the fact that Commander Spock exists. ” Kirk flushes at the mention of Spock’s name. “In fact, it occurs to me that if you wanted to get the actual odds on whether a Vulcan lady would drop her drawers for the likes of you, you’d be better off asking him.” Kirk makes a strangled noise, face bright red. McCoy looks at him, and his face falls.

“Jim, no.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” 

“Jim, _no._ ”

“I think I have to be going now-“

“No, you are not going anywhere, sit your ass right down until I get some sense into you.” Kirk sits. “Is it not enough that you pick up strange on every goddamn planet we visit? Or maybe you think you didn’t screw enough of your fellow shipmates before we even graduated from the Academy and you’ve got to bang every last one of us?”

“It really isn’t like that,” says Kirk, although up until this moment he’d thought that’s exactly what it was like.

“Do you just feel an overwhelming urge to make my life even more complicated than it already is?”

“Bones-“

“Morbid curiosity, then? A dare? Double or nothing on the previously-heterosexual Vulcan-Human hybrid? He’s your goddamn first officer, _Captain_ James Kirk. Haven’t the Vulcans suffered enough without having their horizons broadened by the likes of you?”

Kirk flinches. “That’s cold, Bones.”

“I’m sorry, I just, I don’t even know what to do with you sometimes.” McCoy sits on the table next to Kirk. 

Kirk puts his head in his hands. “Trust me, I don’t know what to do with me either.”

McCoy considers Kirk for a moment. For all of the living he has crammed into his scant quarter-century, Kirk is still unbelievably young. 

“You… like him,” says McCoy.

“It is really, really complicated.”

 McCoy is silent for a long while. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his flask. 

“Fuck it, son,” he says, and takes a swig. “Just fuck it all to hell.”


	3. Chapter 3

If Kirk has learned anything in the fifteen years of his life that have passed since he discovered sex, it’s that the chase is entirely overrated. He has never had to work this hard for it in his life and he genuinely hates it. Yet he keeps on doing it. Kirk starts to wonder if, perhaps, one too many hits to the face has really done him in, because a reasonable person would have given up by now. But it’s not just stubbornness that makes him keep flirting with Spock despite the fact that he has gotten exactly nowhere, especially since he is, by all accounts, making himself miserable. And it’s not really just the memories, although his past-self/future-self dreams are becoming downright painful. 

No, if Kirk really had to name something that kept him hanging on, if someone had a phaser to his head and made him, on point of death, confess why it was that he kept pursuing despite almost three hundred standard days of no documentable response, he would say it was the eyes. Spock very rarely meets Kirk’s gaze head on. It actually took Kirk a while to notice, and, in fact, if he wasn’t so intent on getting Spock to loosen up and flirt a little Kirk might _never_ have noticed. Spock will look _towards_ him, but he will not actually look _at_ him. He usually focuses on a spot at Kirk’s hairline, or his ear, and when Kirk turns his face so that Spock’s eyes will meet his, Spock’s eyes shift, sliding just out of reach. Sometimes, and Kirk knows this is not quite logical but it is still true, sometimes he can sense Spock looking at the back of his head when he is in the command chair. But if Kirk turns around to see, Spock will be looking at his own console, or considering the view just beyond Kirk’s head. Kirk gets the sense that Spock’s gaze has just slipped over him, and if he turns to chase it is is like water soaking into sand. 

So Kirk is convinced that Spock is avoiding him.

And that, _that_ , is what keeps him going, because James T. Kirk is a masochistic bastard.

Ten months in, Kirk gets fed up with himself and the whole situation and decides he is going to turn the tables. Kirk is a Starfleet captain. He is a dashing and handsome goddamn _Starfleet captain_. Spock doesn’t want to look at him? Fine. He can give Spock a hell of a lot not to look at. 

This is all to explain why, at this particular moment, Kirk is stripped to the waist, covered in a light sheen of sweat, and leaning with one shoulder against the wall of the corridor next to the turbolift. Spock has just come off beta shift and is on his way back to his quarters when he sees Kirk and stops. He takes a moment to consider Kirk, and Kirk swears he can hear his Vulcan logical circuits whirring: noting that Kirk is awake several hours before his shift, his chest bare, knuckles taped, that he is sweaty but his breathing is unlabored and concluding at first that Kirk has been sparring. A quick roster check and Kirk can see Spock correct himself- no, Kirk has been working, perhaps with the heavy bag, in preparation for a sparring partner. All optimal partners just got off beta shift with Spock himself, so Spock, quite reasonably and logically, concludes that Kirk has come here to find someone with whom to finish his workout. 

“Hey there,” says Kirk. “Anything interesting happen?”

“No,” says Spock. “And if it had, rest assured you would be briefed accordingly.”

“Just asking.”

Spock moves as if to pass by, but then stops and looks at Kirk again. Kirk chalks up one point for the dashing and handsome captain. “Are you looking for someone in particular?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Kirk. He turns so his back is flat against the wall. “Want to mess around?”

Spock raises an eyebrow. “I am not familiar with this phrasing.”

“You know,” says Kirk, shifting so his shorts ride lower on his hips. “Get sweaty. Work out the kinks after a shift on the bridge.”

“Ah,” says Spock, his eyes resting on Kirk’s collarbone. “You wish to fight with me.”

“Sure, however you like it,” says Kirk. He rolls his shoulders back, tensing the muscles across his chest.

Spock sighs. “This seems illogical. As I recall, our last fight did not end well for you.”

“Mister Spock, are you taunting me?” Kirk says, and he feels heat rising in his stomach. He shifts against the wall and Spock turns his body to face Kirk’s squarely. Kirk realizes that he is quite penned in.

“No, I am simply stating fact,” says Spock. Then there is a long silence. Kirk feels it stretch, precarious and dangerous between them. Physically, this is the closest Spock has come to Kirk since the day Spock attacked him on the command console. Kirk feels himself flush at the memory, the heat in his stomach moving to curl at the base of his spine. 

Kirk shakes free of that thought and looks up to see that Spock is unnaturally still. His eyes are on Kirk’s mouth. Kirk grins. He is about to reply, his tongue just pushing through his teeth when Spock’s eyes flick upwards. They are large and brown and so close and Kirk is suddenly dizzy. There is a bright pulse, as if someone flicked on a light and then turned it off quickly, leaving spots of red and blue dancing in his vision. He breathes in sharply. He has forgotten what he was going to say.

Spock breaks eye contact. “Although I require less rest than the fully human members of the crew, I do indeed sleep,” he says, turning to leave. The pulsing is still there in Kirk’s mind, but fainter, more contained. “Good luck with your workout, and I will see you on my next shift.”

Kirk is still standing there, slightly stunned, when Sulu comes tumbling through the door. “Hey Captain. You lost?”

“No, no. I’m fine,” says Kirk. “Wanna go punch things?’

“You bet,” says Sulu. “Let me go change.”

* * *

After that Kirk notices the pulsing more often. It is never as sharp as it was that first time, more like the seeping of sunlight through heavy curtains. It intensifies when Spock’s eyes brush his face, and although it fades when Spock turns away, each time it fades a little less. Kirk makes it a game to see how much he can get Spock to look at him. He starts wearing his more dashing uniforms- drawing Spock’s eyes back to his shoulders, his hips, the sweep of his chest, the curve of his buttocks. Spock’s eyes do linger, Kirk can swear they do, he can feel them. Eventually he can feel them even when Spock is not looking at him, as if he is carrying something with him all of the time, or as if there is something just beyond his vision and he is straining to see it.

One night, after a particularly distracting and trying day, Kirk thinks that maybe the answer he is looking for is actually already in his own mind. He has never actively explored the  memories the older, more problematic Spock gave him. Although he has stopped trying to fight them off, he usually just sits and lets them wash over him when they will. The ones he has access to already are frustratingly jumbled and difficult to interpret in any systematic way, and, to make things worse, they seem to be a mix of both Spock’s own experiences and things he knows from mind-melding with the other Jim Kirk. Kirk does know some things, knows, for example, that Spock’s mouth is hot and that he favors slow warm kisses, almost chaste, all lips and cheeks first and tongue a distant second. He also knows that the other Jim was tantalizingly cautious. But what Kirk doesn’t know is when Spock first kissed Jim, or why; he doesn’t know exactly how that decision was made, and it occurs to him that, perhaps, if he tried harder, he could find out. He lies down on his bed and breathes slowly, focusing on his breath, and waits for the memories to come, as they usually do before sleep.

(And if this endeavor seems vaguely similar to a meditative practice, well, Kirk would never admit that, because that’s head-shrinker territory, and there is a _reason_ he didn’t share the mind-meld business with McCoy.)

A memory comes on him- the taste of skin, of a mouth, teeth. He closes his eyes and concentrates on it, connecting this memory to all the different ways he knows Spock kissed Jim, tries to put them in order and then page backwards like a book. But this is not how the mind works- he cannot sort out the earlier kisses because he cannot attach these memories with any sense of time; and even if he could, Kirk does not think it would be as easy as flipping backwards to the beginning. He shifts and focuses again, this time on the sensation of  lips, of skin hot and flushed, and tries to explore the emotions Spock attached to the memories. Is there surprise? Wonder? A sense of exploration or newness? Something, anything, to indicate seduction, to sense how it was that Spock first came to Jim, first touched him, first loved him. He feels the light touch of a hand on his face, fingers ghosting over his cheekbones and down his neck. He shakes his head to clear that memory and starts again. 

But soon, too soon, sleep begins to overtake him. Kirk loses the tenuous control he had of the images, his own mind spinning away from him, and suddenly he is flooded by a memory of Spock’s body, all tight lines and long limbs. He feels a hand brush up against his hip, along the inside of his thigh, skin dry and pulsing hot. He groans, turns into this body, the body of his beloved, and feels himself grow hard. Kirk abandons the search fully then, taking himself in hand, thrusting ruthlessly until he spends himself in the sheets, remembering the feverish whispers of another lover, another life. He sleeps fitfully, but without dreams.

They mark the one year anniversary of Nero’s defeat by going to a planet Scotty suggests because it holds some sort of Federation record for longest worldwide pub crawl. The entire planet surface is covered in bars and drunk, stumbling, half-clothed and happy revelers. Kirk wears his tightest uniform pants, the ones he knows are basically a walking intercultural incident.

Spock barely looks at him. Kirk can’t look at anyone else. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Extremely mild warning for traumatic situation, see end notes if you want a full explanation before reading (is spoilery so be cautious if you care about that.)

They had come upon this planet in a sparsely settled region of space and had, as their mission orders dictated, beamed down an exploration team. Spock went as Science officer to oversee the collection of specimens. Kirk went because he was the captain and he could do that. McCoy went because Kirk was the captain and he if he wanted to bring his friend romping on the surface of a planet that seemed to be mostly tropical in nature, he could do that too. In retrospect, Kirk can see how bringing all three of them down to the surface of the planet and leaving Uhura and Scotty on the bridge was a foolish idea, but the initial scans had shown very little life and no indication of any hostile presence. 

(Kirk notes, for future reference, he should not trust so much in initial scans.)

Kirk and McCoy quickly realize their presence is entirely superfluous. So they walk around a bit, observe that, indeed, this planet has several wonderful bodies of water and smooth open beaches, and then busy themselves with testing out whether the mango-shaped fruits on the trees also taste mango-like. This is where Spock finds them, and if he is irritated at their lackadaisical behavior, he is trying very hard not to show it, and very nearly succeeding.

“Captain,” says Spock. “The collection teams are reporting some interesting findings.”

“Do tell,” says Kirk, grinning at McCoy, who is running some sort of scanner over a piece of fruit. McCoy deems it Kirk-safe, and Kirk cuts off a piece to eat it. 

“Yes. There are several areas where we are finding protein signatures that are incompatible with this ecosystem.”

“Wait, what?” He swallows quickly.

Spock clears his throat. “There seem to be areas of residue on the local plant life. Likely excretions, with a protein base that indicates a complex life form, but including compounds not naturally occurring anywhere else in this area.”

“Spock, are these  _slime trails?”_ Kirk looks at the half eaten fruit in his hand and is suddenly not hungry anymore. “Are you telling me something is sliming all over the place?”

“Indeed, sir,” says Spock. “And not just something… something distinctly alien.”

“Oh great,” says Kirk. He unhooks his comm from his belt and flips it open. “Captain Kirk to  _Enterprise,_ come in  _Enterprise_.”

“Scotty here, sir.” The comm crackles.

“Scotty, we might not be alone here. Please initiate a second scan.”

“Yes sir. Captain, do ye-“

The comm cuts out.

“Dammit,” says Kirk, pounding it against his palm. “Stupid things. Bones, give me yours.”

“Captain, I am sure you are aware that striking the device will not boost the signal,” says Spock.

“Shows what you know,” says McCoy, giving his comm to Kirk. “Tried and true human engineering, Spock. Sometimes things just need a good whack.”

Spock lifts an eyebrow in response. Kirk, meanwhile, cannot get his comm or McCoy’s to show any signs of life. “Something’s blocking them, I think, or shorted them out,” he says, then drops the half-eaten fruit and pockets the comm. “Let’s assume all comms are down. Spock, Bones, gather the team up. Prepare to engage hostiles. Meet back at the shuttle. Take off in thirty minutes.” McCoy and Spock both nod and then trot off into the underbrush. Kirk checks his phaser, then makes his way around the edge of the shoreline. He is about halfway back to the shuttle when he hears a noise behind him. He turns and raises his phaser.

“Identify yourself!” he cries.

There is a loud screeching roar. He sees what looks like a large bundle of leaves hurtling towards him. He fires his phaser once, twice, and then everything goes black.

* * *

Kirk wakes up. He feels wet and cold. It is still very dark.

“Captain?”

“Spock, is that you?” Kirk pushes up onto his knees.

“Captain, do not try to stand. It would be best to conserve our energy.”

“Spock, I can’t see you…” Kirk waits as his eyes adjust. He is covered in mud. He sees movement in the darkness about six feet from him, and slowly he makes out a blue shirt, dirtied, and a familiar pointed ear. “There you are. What happened?”

“Unclear, Captain. I believe you and I have been taken hostage. I was just regaining consciousness when you were thrown into the hole.”

“Hole? Oh, yes, that would explain the mud.” Kirk pulls his hand up and it comes free with a squelch. “How long was I out?”

“Hard to be certain. Approximately thirty minutes in my presence.” Kirk tries not to do the math in his head, or to think about what must have happened to Spock to make him so imprecise in his measure of time, but he can’t help himself - they are likely far past the rendezvous time. 

“Anyone else?”

“Negative, Captain.”

Kirk settles back against the dirt behind him. He looks up. The roof of the hole is covered with what looks like a thickly woven thatch of branches and palm fronds. It is about ten feet overhead, too tall for him to reach. If he stood on Spock, though, he might be able to—

“They are keeping watch, Captain,” says Spock. “And have weighted the covering with something beyond even my strength to move from this angle. We cannot push out from below.”

“Well, that’s discouraging,” says Kirk, slumping against the wall again. “Guess you’re stuck with me then.”

“I do not understand.”

“I just mean… never mind.” Kirk looks over at Spock again. The shadows are deep, and he cannot make out Spock’s eyes. He wishes he could see him, really see him, because Kirk is starting to panic just a little bit. “I am sure you realize the others have left us by now.”

“I do not think so, Captain. Although you gave the order to lift off in half an hour, McCoy will not follow it if it means abandoning you. He will search for us.”

Kirk grimaces. “Yes, he probably will. Stubborn son of a bitch.” Then, a small spiteful part of his brain makes him go on. “Good thing it wasn’t you, then. Logical thing would be to leave.”

Spock is quiet. Then he shifts, almost as if to move closer to Kirk, but does not. “No. That would not be… logical.”

“Oh really?” Kirk knows his voice sounds petulant, but he really doesn’t like being stuck in this hole, and he also doesn’t like that this is likely his fault.

“No,” says Spock. Kirk waits, but Spock does not go on.  The silence makes Kirk ache. Everything had been going so well, he thought. Actually, things weren’t going well at all, generally, if Kirk was fair about it, but compared to being stranded in this jungle, chased by slobbering, slime coated aliens, and trapped in a muddy, stinking hole with no food, no water, no ladder, no rope, and no working comms, the rest of his life on the  _Enterprise_ was a bright shining beacon of organization.  He finds he is angry, and wants to argue with Spock, and tell him that clearly his logic meter is broken, because a Captain who would make a foolish mistake like this is a Captain they should leave behind. He thinks about McCoy out there in the jungle. He thinks about Scotty and Uhura on the bridge. He thinks he shouldn’t even have been on this goddamn mission and and now he has put them all in danger because they have to look for him. It is unbearable. 

He jumps to his feet. “Look here, Spock. I’m sorry I’ve somehow landed us in this mess, but I’m not just going to sit here.”

Spock startles. “Sir, we don’t know how long we will be here. I must insist you remain calm. We have no supplies, and physical exertion will only-”

“HEY YOU!” Kirk yells at the roof of their hole. “YOU SLIMY SONS OF BITCHES! I AM TALKING TO YOU!” He presses himself back against the dirt and then bounds forward, propelling himself as high as he can up the far wall. “HEY! DOWN HERE!”

“Captain, please,” says Spock. “You are not behaving rationally…”

“Now you listen here,  _Lieutenant Commander,”_ Kirk spits Spock’s title at him. “Maybe it’s the Vulcan way to just sit around, but as you well know, I’m not Vulcan, and I’m still your superior officer. I am  _not_  going to die alone in a hole.” Kirk scrambles up the wall again. “ANYONE OUT THERE? OR ARE YOU ALL CHICKEN? You’ll throw a man in a hole, but you won’t face him? GET DOWN IN HERE WITH ME AND I’LL SHOW YOU HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE DONE.”

“Captain-“ Spock reaches for him, but Kirk spins away, determined to shout until his voice is hoarse and his head is empty. “No, Captain, I can I hear something…” Kirk quiets then, deferring to Spock’s Vulcan hearing. Then he hears it too- sounds from above, getting louder- he hears muted shouting, and the distinct sound of phasers firing.

“Yes, I hear it too, we should -”  Kirk looks at Spock, sees agreement in his eyes, and they both jump to their feet, yelling. After a few excruciating minutes the roof is ripped off of their hole. They are blinded by the sudden wash of light, and then they see a grinning face poke over the edge. 

“Keptin!” says Chekov. “Ve found you.” 

He throws down a rope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains kiddnappy-sort of hostage situation, short term confinement, no physical harm done to any major or minor characters. Also Jim yells a lot.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Extremely mild warning for traumatic situation, see end notes if you want a full explanation before reading (is spoilery so be cautious if you care about that.)

“It’s a damn good thing you’re so loud, Jim,” says McCoy after they hoisted him and Spock out of the hole. “We were searching for almost an hour and saw nothing, but then you started making that racket and one of your captors broke cover to go check on you. Sulu took them out, six on one.”

“He’s lying,” says Sulu. “I only got three of them. Bones and Chekov took out the others.”

“Why are you even here?” says Kirk, surveying the damage around them. There are sluggish lumps on the ground covered in leaves and sticks. The bodies look like part of the foliage when they are lying still, so he understands why the crew had difficulty finding them. “You weren’t on this mission.”

“No sir,” says Sulu, sheepishly. “But Uhura ordered us to beam down as soon as the comms cut out. Figured you could use the extra firepower.”

“Indeed,” said Kirk. “Thank you.” He looks around. “This all of them, then?” 

“We think so,” says McCoy. “The slime trails Spock’s team found were confined to this area, and there wasn’t any indication of more than a handful.”

Kirk nods. “Let’s find their ship while the science team loads up the shuttle. Maybe we can figure out why they were here.”

“Sir,” says Spock. “With all respect - the most logical course of action would be to return to the ship immediately.”

“I understand that,” says Kirk. “But something about this situation is bothering me. Why did they throw us in that hole? They could have just lain low and waited for us to leave.”

“Who cares?” says McCoy. “Bastards are gone now.”

“I regret I must agree with the Doctor, Captain,” says Spock. McCoy rolls his eyes. “It is impractical to try and assess the motives of our enemies at this point. We may never know.”

“Still, though,” says Kirk. “It doesn’t fit. I don’t like it when things don’t fit. Plus, I think Chekov might be on his way to figuring out what is wrong with our comm units.” He tilts his head over to Chekov, who has the back off of one of the units and is poking around. “He could probably use your help, Spock.”

“Yes, sir,” says Chekov, not looking up. “Circuits are all shorted out, I think.” He offers the opened unit to Spock, who takes it.

They locate the wreckage of the Slug ship after about an hour. It is nothing but a pile of rubble.  Spock rummages on the ground and repurposes some wires. Kirk examines the ship. He can just make out writing on the side - he thinks it says _Victory._ It strikes him as an inappropriate name.

The device in Spock’s hands crackles to life.

“ _Enterprise_ to Kirk, Kirk, are ye there?” Kirk has never been so happy to hear Scotty’s voice in his life. 

“Yes, Kirk here.”

“Oh, thank goodness, Captain. Everyone down there needs to be on alert- we picked up an echoing distress signal from another vessel. It seems you are not the first visitors to this planet.”

Kirk looks at the scorched remains of the _Victory._ “You don’t say.”

“Captain?” That’s Uhura.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Transmissions indicate that the craft is Galatian in origin. I cannot make exact translations, but from what I can pick up it seems they were on route to Halcyon, but were pursued, went into overdrive, swung too close to the planet gravitational field and crashed.”

“Pursued by whom?” Kirk is confused- ships this size don’t just veer off course like that, even under chase. They must have been fleeing an attack, which means that something bigger could be out there.

“Unclear,” says Uhura, and Kirk knows that the uncertainty of her translations is irritating her. “But Captain, we are picking up life forms on board the crashed vessel.”

“Thats… that’s not possible,” says Kirk. He looks over at the pile of charred metal. “We’ve taken down six of them, and that ship’s not big enough to hold too many more.” Kirk doesn’t add that even if they had crammed others on board, the crash and the fire surely would have eliminated their life signs by now.

“Sir, I am only reporting what the scans say.” Kirk looks at Spock, who raises an eyebrow. Stupid scans.

“Wait a minute, Uhura-" says Kirk. “did you say it was on route to Halcyon?”

“Yes sir.”

Kirk turns to Spock. “Isn’t that almost 500 parsecs away?”

“Yes sir,” says Spock.

“Then what were they doing here?” says Kirk, quietly. “Why would a Galatian ship of this size go this far out of their way… Uhura, how degraded are the transmissions?”

“Almost fully, sir.” 

Kirk pauses a moment to appreciate exactly how skilled Uhura must be to have pulled that much information out of what, to anyone else, would be a stream of white noise.  “Uhura, is it possible that the ship was on it’s way to Hafidron? That is much closer.”

“It’s possible sir, but the translation… oh. Perhaps I was using the wrong dialect? A southern Galatian would use more glottal stops… but… if the ships crew was from the coastal area…” Uhura devolves into muttering as she reexamines the code. “Yes, that would make a much better translation matrix. Captain Kirk, sir?”

“Yes, Uhura?”

“The ship is Galatian, they were on their way to a planet that they call Calcon, but we have designated Omega X.” Kirk’s breath catches in his throat, and beside him Sulu inhales sharply. “Omega X is deep in…”

“… Orion occupied territory.” Kirk finishes with Uhura.

“Yes sir.”

McCoy turns to them when he hears it, and he Kirk and Spock look at the wreckage again. Kirk clicks on the comm. “Scotty, scan the ship wreckage again. Give me approximate size.”

“Yes, Captain.”

There is an interminable wait.

“Captain?” Scotty’s voice is tinny. “Class 780 ship, sir. Cargo capacity 2000 cubic meters.”

“Scotty, we’re looking at the ship now, it’s just not possible.”

“Captain,” Spock says, quietly. “Although improbable, it is technically possible that the ship has a camouflaging device which survived the crash. In fact, logic dictates this is the most likely scenario, given the evidence before us.”

“Oh dear God,” says McCoy.

And just as he says that, they see something move in the clearing behind the wreckage. A door opens up in midair and they can see a hand push its way out. It is followed quickly by a torso and legs, and a humanoid figure stumbles clear of the wreckage. He, or she, or ze, is thin, dirty, covered in rags, and severely burned.  

“Please help us,” they hear, and then the figure falls to the ground and stops moving.

* * *

It takes them almost six hours to transport the survivors from the slaver ship onto the _Enterprise_. They are in bad shape - McCoy does what he can on the ground to deal with the burns and crash injuries, but most of them are fragile due to severe malnourishment and have to be carried out of the wreckage. Once they are back on board Kirk wants nothing more than a shower and some sleep, but he stops on the bridge, mostly out of habit. He walks in to find Uhura sobbing quietly into Scotty’s shoulder.

He is not sure what is most startling about the picture- the fact that Uhura is grasping Scotty like she will fall over if he moves, or that Scotty, his face to Kirk, looks as if he has actually moved beyond panic and into a state of something resembling comfort.

Kirk thinks back to the Academy, the turmoil of meeting so many people so different from any he knew in Iowa, and so unexpected, even though he was raised in a ‘Fleet family. And yet he has learned that nothing there, as shocking as it was and as informative, has prepared him for the realities of this exploratory mission, the highs and lows of meeting new cultures and finding new places, the wonder of it, and the rage.

And he is ashamed because has never even imagined what any of this has been like for Uhura, the communications genius, who lived with an Orion survivor at the Academy and befriended her. He does not know why Uhura chose this life, or what drove her to be here, on this ship, but it occurs to him then it is unbelievably ignorant to assume that everyone is driven by the same things that drive him. So much of what he does is done for the wrong reasons, and even though it seems to work out right in the end, Kirk thinks that if he doesn’t start paying attention this is going to come back to bite him in the ass. While Kirk looks on, Scotty raises a hand to Uhura’s hair and strokes it, softly, cautiously. Kirk nods to him, once, then backs quickly into the turbolift without speaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Chapter contains some implied violence towards off-screen alien life and allusions to a large number of people being held against their will as part of slave trading- no major characters suffer physical harm, but there is emotional turmoil.
> 
> Also - it gets significantly slashier from here on in, so fair warning. Although really you shouldn't be reading this if you don't want to hear about that sort of thing. I did put it on the tin.


	6. Chapter 6

He makes it back to his own quarters to find Spock standing in the hallway outside.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Kirk is cautious, and avoids Spock’s eyes. He doesn’t want to be reminded of the game he had been playing for so long, not now.

“I would like to speak with you.”

Kirk nods, and his heart absolutely does not skip a beat, that would be ridiculous, and also inappropriate.

Spock draws himself up even straighter than usual and says, “I believe I owe you an apology.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me,” says Kirk, a little too quickly.

“I must insist. Today, I was incorrect to tell you to remain quiet while we were trapped, and if you had listened to me when I recommended returning to the _Enterprise,_ it is possible we would never have found the _Victory-_ ”

Kirk cuts him off. He knows this is the logic of the situation, but he cannot bear to hear it, even though Spock means well. “We can’t think like that, Spock. What’s important is that no further harm was done, in the end.”

“But Captain-”

“Jim. You should probably call me Jim.”

“Jim,” says Spock, hesitantly, which Kirk finds oddly pleasing.  “I wish to apologize for my treatment of you, not for the outcome of the trip.”

“Oh,” says Kirk. “Go on, then.”

But Spock does not continue right away. Instead, he looks down at his boots, then brings his hands around in front of him. “I strive in all things to honor my Vulcan heritage. I have always done so, but since the destruction of Vulcan my pursuit of logic has been, perhaps… overzealous.” Kirk moves to interrupt, but Spock puts his hand up to silence him. “You are the captain, and in the future I will endeavor to remember that your authority allows you to act in ways I find illogical, and that it is my duty, as your First Officer, to obey.”

“Spock,” says Kirk. “I don’t mind, really I don’t.” Spock keeps his hand up, as if he is physically blocking Kirk’s voice. “You should disagree with me when I’m being an idiot. It’s… it’s what makes this work,” he waves his hand in between them, “you and I. Balance.”

“Captain-“

_“Jim.”_

“Yes, Jim, I… I must admit, I find your style of leadership fascinating. It is most unpredictable, and yet…” Spock trails off. Kirk looks up then, and Spock is concentrating on his own hand, unable to finish his sentence. They both stand there for a long moment looking at Spock’s upraised hand between them and not at each other.

Kirk considers Spock’s fingers. They are long and pale and strong, and although he has never actually touched them, Kirk knows them. He knows them intimately. He knows how they would feel trailing across his hip and cupped at his lower back. He knows how they would feel wrapped around the length of him, how they would feel deep inside of him, arched up and trembling. Kirk is overcome with the desire to feel them, just once, to actually confirm what his mind tells him he already knows. He reaches out two fingers towards Spock. Spock sees this and starts to move his hand away, but he is not quite quick enough, and the pads of Kirk’s fingers brush against Spock’s palm. Kirk expects Spock to keep pulling back, but he does not- he stills as soon as Kirk’s fingers make contact. Kirk has less than a moment to register this before he can think of nothing but the touch of Spock’s skin. It is only a small touch- the tips of Kirk’s fingers are pressed to the center of Spock’s palm, and it seems it should be delicate, feather-light, and easily broken. Spock’s skin is warm, hot, almost unbearable and Kirk cannot move away. Then Spock draws breath in quickly, his fingers splaying out, pushing his palm towards the arc of Kirk’s fingers; it is as if he is trying to pull back and push forward at the same time. Kirk can feel every muscle in his hand, feel them acutely, and they are tensed to spring. 

Then, quick as a snake, and if Kirk didn’t know enough about Vulcans to know this was impossible he would swear Spock did it involuntarily, Spock twists his hand to grip Kirk’s, palm to palm, fingers entwined. A wave of light hits Kirk, dizzying him; he can’t just feel the muscles in Spock’s hand- he can feel his entire arm, the length of his torso, taught and coiled. Kirk brings his other hand up, pressing Spock’s hand between his own. The light in his mind is so intense Kirk closes his eyes instinctively, but this does nothing to stop it; it surges into him and through him and suddenly he is _hard_.

Spock gasps and pulls away.

Kirk opens his eyes. The colors of the corridor are too dim, too dull. He can see that Spock’s eyes are still closed. 

“Are you okay?” Kirk says.

Spock opens his eyes. He blinks, dazed, but then his eyes settle on Kirk. His pupils are wide, eyes blown almost black.

“Spock?” Kirk says.

Spock is still, then blinks again. Once. Twice.

“Spock, what was that?”

Spock’s eyes narrow and his eyebrows pull together. “You… do not…”

Kirk shakes his head. “What just happened?” 

Spock has that look that he gets when Kirk displays a remarkable amount of ignorance. He grits his teeth, looks at his own hand, and suddenly Kirk thinks maybe Spock is going to choke him again. 

“ _This,”_ says Spock, and Kirk is thrown up against the wall, Spock’s thin fingers, his marvelously strong fingers, are fisted in Kirk’s shirt, and Spock’s mouth is on his, lips soft and hot. Kirk cannot breathe, he does not want to breathe. His knees are weak and he thinks that if Spock did not have such a tight grip on him he would fall to the floor. Spock is still kissing him, warm and…and now it is wet because he is opening his mouth, _opening his mouth,_ pushing his tongue against Kirk’s teeth, insistent. Kirk leans against the wall and lets him in.

His mind slams open. Until now Kirk had not really understood what the pulsing light meant but as he feels the flood of sensation overwhelm him he cannot for the life of him understand how he did not know before - it is a pathway, and now it is clear, wide open and streaming. Kirk for a moment thinks he is two places at once; back against the wall, head tipped back, mouth slack and willing, but also he is thrumming and insistent, fingers wrapped in yellow fabric, tongue licking against teeth. Spock growls, or is it Kirk, and then their mouths are apart, and Spock is mouthing at Kirk’s neck, and Kirk says “what was…” and Spock says “hands” and Kirk says “I don’t…” and Spock says “ _Jim, hands,”_ and slams Kirk’s hand against the wall, up next to his ear, sliding his fingers up from the grip on Kirk’s wrist until the length of each one is pressed, smooth and burning, against the length of each of Kirk’s, and then Kirk remembers all at once both that Vulcans are touch telepaths and that they kiss hand to hand. “Oh,” says Kirk. “Yes,” says Spock, and his mouth is on Kirk again, consuming him, a bright stream of light and color pouring into his mind, laying him bare. He thrusts his hips forward and he feels hardness against his thigh, and Spock groans.

_Jim._

And before Kirk can think, before he can really understand that Spock is talking to him while he still has his tongue very much in Kirk’s mouth, Kirk answers him with in a language he does not know.

_T’hy’la._

Spock stills, pulls back, hand still on Kirk’s hand. The light in Kirk’s mind narrows, intensifies, and now it is not as sunlight, radiating warmth, but tight and cold and foreign, a spotlight, a laser. Kirk’s head is buzzing and he feels invaded. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the discomfort. 

Then it is gone. 

Kirk does not feel relief. He feels emptiness, cold air, and he realizes Spock has let go of him. Kirk’s knees buckle and he slumps against the wall before throwing his eyes open and bounding forward- seeking that warmth again, that light. But the corridor is empty. Kirk can’t even hear footsteps.


	7. Chapter 7

Spock never speaks of it again. He is almost more distant than he was before the _Victory_ mission: reserved but not cold, pleasant enough but not overly friendly. He does his work promptly and efficiently. He joins the members of the crew during their downtime only occasionally, observing for a while, and then retires to his quarters before anything gets too rowdy. He is the picture of professionalism. Kirk wants to murder him.

It would all be bearable, almost bearable, Kirk tells himself, if he could still feel that pulsing light when Spock looked at him, or if he felt, as he did before, that Spock was somehow avoiding him. But it is not like that any longer. Spock meets his eyes unflinchingly. He talks with him at length about protocol, unblinking and unfazed, while Kirk is in utter agony. Kirk tries to rile him up, purposely bucking regulation, driving faster than is necessary, taking fewer precautions, volunteering for exploratory missions to put himself in undue danger. Spock answers with the exact amount of concern a First Officer should have for his Captain, punctuated with a raised eyebrow. The emptiness Kirk feels makes him want to scream.

Kirk goes to visit the older, more problematic Spock the next time they land on the Vulcan colony. He wants to ask him a thousand questions, but he can’t bring himself to do it, and so he just tells him the mind-touch thing hasn’t been working out exactly the way he had expected. He explains about the little things- the emotional leaks, and a weird void he sometimes feels in his head. Problematic Spock listens quietly for the most part, and asks a few questions. Although he never sounds worried, Kirk gets the sense that he didn’t expect this reaction either. 

“I should have been more cautious with the transfer of my memories. You are… not quite like him. Just as your Spock is not quite like me.”

“But do you think he’s… mostly the same?”

“I believe that is what I just said, yes.”

Kirk is silent. 

“You are wondering about a specific issue,” says Spock.

“Yes,” says Kirk.

“I will answer if I can. You have only to ask. I am your friend, Jim.”

“Right. Well, um, the other Jim, the one you know… knew. Uh. You and he were… closer… than Spock and I.”

“That came with time.”

“No, I mean, you were…” Kirk cannot think of the right words. No, that’s not right- he can’t think of the right _Standard_ words.

Spock raises an eyebrow. “Oh, yes. We were bonded. Is that what you were asking?”

“Yes, I mean, no, sort of. I know that from what you showed me before.”

Kirk gets the sense Spock is startled by this, and Spock speaks cautiously. “You knew what?”

“That you were…” Kirk can’t bring himself to say _lovers_. “Bonded.”

“Ah, as astute as always. Still, I am impressed you were able to infer that from what I showed to you.”

“You are impressed I inferred… What are you talking about? You showed me.” says Kirk.

“I showed you only what was necessary for you to understand my appearance in your timeline,” says Spock.

“There was _more?_ ”

Spock is quiet, considering Kirk for a moment. “What exactly do you remember?”

“I remember…You were… he was…” says Kirk, and then, because he can’t bear the thought of going back to the ship and things continuing the way they are, “ _t’hy’la_ ," then feels relief at finally saying it out loud. 

“Oh.” Spock pauses. “I did not intend for that to happen.”

“Yeah, well, thanks.”

There is a long silence.

“This is quite unfortunate. Jim, I apologize. When I reached out to you in this way I did not know yet how different this time was from my own. In fact, I do not think I understood until now how much the loss of your father had changed you.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m a total bastard, aren’t I,” says Kirk.

“No, Jim,” Spock raises a hand to silence him. “You could never be anything but an honorable man; the best man I have ever known, or ever shall know. Nothing could change that.” Kirk shifts uncomfortably. “I meant, simply, that although the James Kirk I knew was empathic to a certain extent, he was not capable of a full mind meld without significant supervision. Not for many years.” Spock pauses, looking at Kirk for a long while. Kirk feels measured and weighed. “It seems you are different.”

“What exactly are you saying?” says Kirk.

“May I?” Spock reaches for his face again. 

“Why the hell not,” says Kirk, turning his cheek up. This time it is different. Rather than an overwhelming flood of memory and sound and emotion, he feels release. It is as if he had been sitting in a close room for months and suddenly someone has opened a window to let in the air. Kirk pushes his own life to the surface, so Spock can see what has happened to him since the memories of that other life were dumped, so unceremoniously, into his brain.

“Thank you, Jim.” Spock steps back again and Kirk feels lonely in his own head. “You are such a young man, and yet you are so open, so raw and hurt. Like a wound. I think my Jim was never … like this.” Spock looks at Kirk, and Kirk knows he is both sad and ashamed of his sadness. He knows this even though Spock’s face is as still as it has ever been. “You are who you are, James Tiberius Kirk. I do not know how things will go from here, but I cannot imagine I would not love you.”

Kirk steps back from that. “But you don’t know?”

“No one can know such a thing. But I am certain of this - this man you know, who has lost his mother, his planet, and his entire race - he is as different from me as you are different from Jim, from my Jim. But your differences are similar, complementary in their own way. There cannot be a universe where you and Spock exist where this is not true.”

Kirk runs his hand through his hair, rubs it down over his forehead, fingers on his closed eyelids. He is tired and he wants to go back to the ship. He wants to drink, a lot. “Thank you,” Kirk says. “For explaining.”

“There is no need to thank me, and, in fact, it seems quite illogical to do so, considering I am the one who caused this problem for you in the first place.”

Kirk tries to smile at that. 

“Jim, if you would let me give you one more piece of advice?” Kirk nods. “I will tell you what I told to Spock when I last saw him - just do what feels right.”

“Yeah, sure.” Kirk turns back to the ship. He considers contacting Scotty or Chekov to get a ride back, but he decides the walk might do him good. Then he turns around. “You told him that? To do what felt right?”

“I did.”

“What did he do?”

“He boarded your ship, Jim. He joined the _Enterprise_.”


	8. Chapter 8

Kirk knows he shouldn’t drink. He knows he shouldn’t drink, especially not now, especially not with McCoy, but God damn it, he’s had it with obeying rules and it seems like the only ones he can break without fucking everything up are the rules he makes himself (and he knows that is just further evidence that he’s cut out to be a crappy captain, which makes him want to drink even more.) So he drinks, and he forces McCoy to listen to him talk about Spock, and McCoy does, because McCoy is the greatest friend in the world.

“I just don’t understand. He’s being an ass. He’s been being an ass for _weeks_.” Kirk is sprawled on McCoy’s bed, tumbler in one hand. McCoy is on the floor with the bottle.

“Jim, he’s not being an ass. He’s a Vulcan. And, at the risk of sounding trite, he’s just not that into you.”

“That, my friend, is impossible.” Kirk sits up on the bed, and he is definitely not swaying.  “No, seriously, just look at me. No one has ever been not into me.”

“Present company excluded….”

“ _No one_. I saw how you looked at me in the decontamination chamber last week.”

“I will not even dignify that with a response.” McCoy reaches out to fill Kirk’s glass again.

“Bones, I don’t think there is enough alcohol in the world to fix the mess I’ve made of this.” Kirk raises his tumbler in a toast to the disaster that is his life, and drinks. 

“Love fucks you up, my friend.” McCoy raises the bottle in reply. But he pauses before drinking. “Jim, I have to ask… and I don’t really want the details here, but I still can’t figure out why you are pursuing this at all.”

Kirk sighs. He has thought about telling McCoy so many times, but he doesn’t know where to start. It was bad enough telling Problematic Spock.  “Just… trust me, okay?”

McCoy makes a sound that registers his complete and utter disapproval. Kirk would have been worried, if it hadn’t been accompanied, as that particular sound usually is, by a firm hand on his shoulder and a reluctant smile. 

“Well,” says McCoy. “You could just be honest with him.”

Kirk grunts to show McCoy exactly how he feels about that plan.

“Really, Jim, it’s gone on long enough. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

Kirk thinks about the situation in the corridor, after the _Victory_ , and he cringes. “Plenty bad, Bones.”

“Worse than this?” McCoy waves his arms, indicating their surroundings. 

And McCoy has a point, damn him, and that’s the only reason Kirk can give for why, at the end of the night, he’s standing in front of Spock’s door. 

He knocks. It slides open.

“Hey,” he says. Spock, to his credit, doesn’t look too startled, although Kirk knows that he is. “Can I come in?”

“You have been drinking,” Spock observes.

“Yes,” says Kirk. “And now I need to talk to you. Let me in.”

Spock considers him for a moment, and later Kirk would realize it is a sign of how distressed Spock has been that he steps aside to let Kirk in. The door slides shut behind him.

“Now,” says Kirk. “I am going to talk to you, and I want you to hear what I have to say, okay?”

“Please sit,” says Spock. Kirk considers the cushions on the floor, the desk chair, and the standard issue officer’s quarters couch. “No, that’s alright,” he says. “I want to stand.”

“Very well,” says Spock, and he also remains standing.

“I…” Kirk looks at Spock, into his eyes. He is painfully beautiful. Kirk had a plan for exactly what he was going to say, and now he can’t remember any of it. “God, you are just gorgeous, do you know that?”

Spock is silent.

“You are. I can’t stand it. I just… I can’t stand it. I know I’m reckless, I know I’ve probably screwed it all up, but please, I need you to understand. I didn’t plan for this to happen, well, I sort of did, but…” Kirk looks down at his feet because he can’t concentrate if he looks at Spock while he is talking. “It all started because of the other you, he was…in my brain, and then that thing in the hallway, I know it was weird, but it was nice, too, right? I didn’t know, I still don’t know…” This is not going well. Kirk stops and takes a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll start at the beginning. Remember when you put me on that ice planet?” He looks up at Spock. Spock nods, briefly. He is listening. Kirk told him to listen and he is listening. Realizing that makes it easier for Kirk to go on. “Well, Spock was there, and he,” Kirk puts his hand on his own face in a mimic of what Problematic Spock did to him, “and I learned all these things and…” he looks at Spock again. Spock looks… interested. 

No, he looks _amused_. 

Why does he look amused? 

“You…know?” Kirk says, and if he sounds outraged he thinks that is _entirely_ appropriate, given the circumstances.

Spock nods again. Kirk waits for him to explain, but then remembers he told Spock to listen. “Okay, you are going to have to start talking, because I officially have no idea what is going on.” 

Spock breathes out. “Please, Jim. Sit.” And so Kirk sits, right there, on the floor. Spock settles across from him, his back against the couch. “I am aware of how my alternate self melded with you. I realized something was… amiss after our encounter the day of the _Victory_ mission.” Kirk nods. “I expect I should have noticed before, as there were other signs, but my own telepathy has been somewhat unpredictable since the destruction of Vulcan and the loss of so many.” Kirk nods again. “In any case, yes, I know now that you have been carrying someone else’s memories, and that they are memories of a very deep and romantic nature. And I also know, although I am not sure that you do, that your encounter with my alternate self has made you capable of a very light form of telepathic connection, at least with me.”

Kirk frowns. “He said it had something to do with how different I was from the other Jim, uh, that I was more open, or something?”

Spock nods. “My own experiences and that of other Vulcans after the the destruction of our planet indicate that trauma and sudden separation impact telepathic and empathic abilities.” Spock looks at him. “I apologize, deeply, for any distress this has caused you.”

“No,” says Kirk, quickly. “It’s not that that’s causing distress, exactly. I… uh… it was kind of nice, before.”

Spock considers him.

“But you are distressed, are you not?”

“Yes,” says Kirk, “but that’s because I _love_ you, you idiot. Not because of some other guy’s memories or that weird light I get when I look at you or even because it turns out you might be able to talk to me inside my head. I am distressed because I love you and I kissed you and then you _ran away.”_

“I see,” says Spock.

“You _see_?” says Kirk.

“Yes,” says Spock. He tilts his head. “What else would you have me say?”

“ _Something_ ,” says Kirk, and he is enraged again. “ _Anything._ Don’t you have any reaction to what I’m saying to you?” Spock’s face remains still. “Why did you run away from me? Why didn’t you tell me you knew? Does this matter to you _at all_? ”

Spock is silent, and so Kirk looks at him, and the alcohol must finally be wearing off because it is only now that Kirk notices that Spock looks miserable. His clothing is rumpled and there are rings around his eyes. His posture is an absolute atrocity. His mouth is set in a grim, determined line. 

“Well?” says Kirk, but his tone is softer now.

“I find I am… unable to react rationally,” says Spock. Kirk feels his pulse quicken, in spite of himself. “I am… overcome, by you,” Spock says. “I have been in isolation, trying to reason out the situation. And I find I cannot do it…alone.” The last word is almost a whisper.

Kirk reaches for him, then. “You aren’t alone, you know. Not in this. Not in anything. Not ever.” 

Spock’s eyes close. Then he reaches his hand out to Kirk, tentatively, slowly. Kirk knows what this is now, so he brushes two fingers against Spock’s, and there is a delicious shiver down his spine, and a soft white pulse of light behind his eyes, familiar and heart-wrenching and oh so joyful.  He trails his fingers against Spock’s again and feels Spock’s body shiver in return, then he leans in to kiss his mouth, and Spock lets him, lips warm and soft and full. And then Spock opens up beneath him, and Kirk pushes him up onto the couch and back into it, hands frantic, mouth wide. His tongue glides against Spock’s, licks his teeth, and oh, how he has wanted this, for so long, but he has not allowed himself to imagine that he was wanted in return. 

“Let me,” says Kirk as Spock’s hands drift to the hem of his shirt, lifting it, pawing at the button of his pants. He toes off his shoes and pulls his shirt over his head. “I wanna-“ but he can’t finish before he dives back in again to catch Spock’s mouth with his own, leaning down into Spock, arching his body over him as Spock runs his hands over Kirk’s back and settles them the base of his spine. Kirk pulls back and presses their foreheads together, looking down at the length of their bodies to the growing bulge in Spock’s pants. He is giddy. He is giddy and he is reckless and he is afraid Spock will talk himself out of this any second so he just charges in, “I want to touch you,” says Kirk. “I think you should let me.” Spock does not speak, but Kirk can feel a quickening of the pulse of light in his mind, so he pushes on. “I have it on good authority that I give the best blow job in at least three star systems. And it would be an absolute _shame_ if you missed out on that.” He leans in to kiss Spock again, feeling that pulsing light again as he slides his tongue between Spock’s lips. There is a rush of air as Spock breathes out, relenting. He slides back into the couch and pushes his hips forward.

Kirk climbs onto Spock, straddling him, willing him to lie still.  He pulls back from Spock’s mouth, oh god Spock’s mouth, and pushes Spock’s shoulders so his hips will slide out even farther, Spock almost prone on the couch. Then Kirk straightens his knees, moves Spock’s hips apart and slides down, smooth and light until he can feel Spock’s cock against his stomach. Spock is hard already, his flies straining. Kirk pauses for a moment, pressing his body to Spock’s, feeling.

“You have been holding out on me,” says Kirk.

“I do not know to what you are referring,” says Spock.

“Oh, you don’t?” Kirk grinds his hips into the couch, his own cock trapped against the cushions, hard and leaking, and his navel pressed to the now sizable bulge in Spock’s pants. “I don’t have much experience in this area, contrary to what you may have heard, but I think someone would have told me if all Vulcans packed heat like this.”

“Ah, yes,” says Spock. “There are some differences you may find… interesting.”

“Interesting, eh?” says Kirk. “What kind of boy do you think I am?” He leans forward again, his hands on either side of Spock’s hips, pressing as he slides down between Spock’s knees to mouth at Spock through his trousers.

Then Kirk, impossibly, feels something move. 

Before he can ask, it moves again.

“It is very difficult to achieve full erection while under constraint,” says Spock. “But I believe I am getting there.”

And that was when Kirk lost control of the situation - when he realized, perhaps, it was a situation he had never controlled in the first place. He startles, trying to wrap his mind around the idea that Spock’s dick is going to get bigger than this, and that he might be controlling it, and _what exactly is going on with Vulcan anatomy?_ , but before he can even reconcile that thought Spock is growling, _growling,_ and Kirk feels the world spin and the floor comes up, slamming into his back and knocking the breath out of him.

And then Spock is there, mouth on Kirk’s, tongue rough and insistent, hands in Kirk’s hair, at his shoulders, pulling at the buttons on his pants. Kirk laughs and wraps his legs around Spock’s waist, pulling his hips up to meet Spock, and god, there it is, Spock’s cock is absolutely huge.

“Clothes. Off. NOW,” says Kirk.

Spock obliges, stripping off his shirt and both their pants and underwear together before pressing his length against Kirk’s. Kirk reaches down to grasp both of them in his hand but he can’t actually get his hand all the way around. He really can’t stand this. Spock is rubbing against him, rutting against his leg and into the crease of his thigh, and Kirk doesn’t know how he could possibly last much longer but Kirk promised him a blow job and goddamn it he is going to follow through.

Spock must be thinking the same thing because he lets Kirk push him up and back through the doorway into the bedroom and then against the bed. Kirk has just enough time to notice that the bed he pushes Spock down on is barely made before Kirk’s on his knees and he has taken the tip of Spock’s dick into his mouth. He runs both hands down the length and Spock bucks his hips up. Kirk glares at him and holds him down- he wants to do this right. He relaxes his jaw and Spock slides farther in, whimpering as Kirk runs his tongue over the veiny underside of him. Spock’s hands reach for Kirk’s hair and Kirk leans forward to give him purchase. He wants this more than he can stand-  loves having someone fuck his mouth, pulling his hair, forcing Kirk to take it, gagging, his throat raw. But Spock’s hands are moving quickly, almost erratic, unsure. Kirk realizes Spock isn’t reaching for his hair- he is groping at Kirk’s face. Kirk pulls off with a loud, obscene _pop_. He presses his face to Spock’s hand.

“Do it,” he says.

Spock hesitates.

“No,” says Kirk. “Stop thinking and _do_ it.”

Spock’s fingers find the psi points. The path between them opens, widens impossibly, disappears, and Kirk is drowned in _want._ His own cock is so hard he thinks it might break off, and he gives in to an impulse and thrusts forward and feels a soft yielding mouth. He gasps as the sensation rushes through him and he almost chokes. He closes his eyes but then he is looking down at his own head, his lips spread wide and red around a hard olive-colored shaft, blue eyes dark with desire and goddamn it it’s a good thing he’s so narcissistic because otherwise this would be creepy. His chin is dripping with precome and spit, his hands pushing down around the base of Spock’s dick, a wet slide, and he feels Spock arch up again, feels himself arch again, so he relaxes his throat and pulls his hands back and Spock slides in to the hilt.

“Oh, Jim,” moans Spock. 

Jim puts his hands on Spock’s ass and squeezes, urging him to move. Spock slides forward so he can put his feet flat on the floor, then he pulls out, slowly, and then pushes back in. The feeling is glorious, almost too much, the strain in his jaw and the tightness of his throat and the feeling of Spock’s thighs on his cheeks. The noises Spock is making are obscene, small whimpers and bits of words, and Kirk knows from his mind that no one else has ever done something like this. No one in the universe has ever gotten down in front of Spock and taken him all the way in and then begged him to come down their throat. Kirk is almost grinning in spite of himself as he smooths his hands over Spock’s hips. 

Kirk looks up to Spock’s face as Spock slides himself into Kirk’s throat, and Kirk knows Spock can see his eyes and he knows he is utterly gone. 

 _Please,_ he thinks, _take me._

Something breaks inside of Spock. He grabs Kirk’s head and holds it down, starts to fuck Jim’s mouth in earnest, his hips coming up off the bed with the force of his thrusts and everything is warm and wet and tight and too too much. Kirk feels heat deep inside of him, his legs pull tight with it, he’s beyond finesse now and he just tries to keep his mouth open and soft and willing and holds on for dear life. Pressure builds at the base of his spine and the ache in his jaw pushes beyond the boundary of bearable, his vision has gone white at the edges and oh god, he can’t stop it now. He comes in thick wet spurts, shaking, and his body gives out.

Kirk swallows, and has barely enough consciousness left to register three things: he has made a mess of himself, he doesn’t care, and this mind meld sex thing is going to be _awesome_. Then he falls into the bed, arms tangled in Spock’s, and he sleeps.


	9. Chapter 9

Kirk wakes up. He is not sure if they have slept a full night. Spock is already awake, sitting up in bed.

“G’morning,” says Kirk. He reaches over to grope at Spock’s thigh. 

Spock doesn’t answer.

Kirk looks up at Spock, eyes focusing. “Hello?” 

Spock doesn’t look at him. 

It is only then that Kirk notices Spock’s posture. 

“Um…” says Kirk. “Are you… okay?”

It is a measure of exactly how not okay Spock is that he nods, once.

“Did you just try to lie to me?” says Kirk.

Spock is still. Then he nods again.

“Hey,” says Kirk, overwhelmed by human instincts. He sits up and reaches to wrap his arms around Spock. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Spock makes a small noise and tightens in Kirk’s arms. Kirk releases him.

“Sorry,” says Kirk. “Too much?”  When Spock goes to nod again, Kirk continues. “Okay, so, no cuddling right now, uh, that’s okay. It’s fine. I’m here, though. Do you want to talk?”

Spock lifts a hand. Kirk reaches for it, and when Spock doesn’t move, Kirk’s fingers curl around Spock’s palm and squeeze. Spock is silent, and after several minutes Kirk thinks maybe he just needs some quiet Vulcan freak out time, and snuggles back down under the covers. 

“No,” says Spock, suddenly. “I cannot.”

“Why?” says Kirk, not sure exactly what Spock means. He sighs, inside. He knew that was too easy.

“You do not understand.”

“I understand just fine,” Kirk lies, baldly, but, he thinks, sufficiently. He grabs Spock’s hand again, holding it tighter in his own. “You can’t talk about it?”

“No, that is not it.”

“Then what?” Kirk sits up. “Please, tell me. I want to help. I… can help.”

“This is… too much,” says Spock.

 _Ah ha,_ Jim thinks. _Here it is._ “This-“ he stops and reaches through their linked hands, pulsing, seeking the light of Spock’s mind and finding it there. “This doesn’t happen every day. But that doesn’t make it _wrong.”_

“It is… it is overwhelming,” Spock pulls back again, and Kirk feels the light in his mind fade.

“Do not give me this telepathy emotional overload crap, not now, not after…” Kirk gestures to his own forehead. “You think you are the only one who gets overwhelmed? What, is it so terrible to feel something?”

Spock closes his eyes. Kirk knows that face: Spock is frustrated with him. Kirk just keeps going. 

“You saw your planet implode, your species exterminated, your mother fall to her death, and you still had the presence of mind to accompany me on a what you admitted was basically a lost cause and you were calm as anything.” Spock frowns and goes to interrupt but Kirk doesn’t let him. “You have run this ship with me for months when grief would have consumed anyone else. You look right into the face of horror every single day and I have never seen you flinch. Not once. Don’t think you can convince me that someone who does all of that could be overwhelmed by _this.”_

 _“_ James Kirk, please _stop talking_ ,” Spock’s voice is desperate. “I am not afraid for myself. I am afraid for you.”

“Me? Ha,” says Kirk. 

“Do not be flippant with me. You must listen.” Spock tightens his grip on Kirk’s hand, and Kirk hears a faint echo in his mind. _Please understand me, t’hy’la. For all we once had been. Listen._

This makes Kirk pause. Spock goes on.

“That man, the other me, the one who showed this all to you and made you believe you wanted to pursue me, he is… calm and in control. And he loved you, he loved Jim.” 

Kirk nods. “Yes, brother, friend, lover, I know all of that. I do pay attention. “

Spock stares at him until he is silent. “I am not that man, and I cannot love you in that way.” Kirk moves to protest but Spock is stern. “I know what you will say - that we are the same. He grew up, as I did, a half-human on a world mistrustful of human vulnerability, and he chose, as I did, to leave them behind and to join Starfleet. But he lived a life before he came to your ship, to our ship. He may have travelled far from Vulcan, and he questioned many of their customs, but he still had a homeworld and a family, and he had a portion of himself that was utterly his own. He was as steel, hardened by time and trial, bent and tempered by battle. But he was not broken.”

“You aren’t broken,” Kirk says, and he curses himself because in all of his own worry about being not as good as the other Kirk, he had not considered that Spock might have inferiority issues of his own. 

“You may argue with me, but you must see that I can never hope to be what he was. You must understand this- you know he sought out the highest honor of our species, sought to purge himself of all emotion, and in the end he could not - for love of humanity. But I…” Spock looks at Kirk and his brown eyes are dark. “I could never even think to try. I am consumed by my rage. It follows me every single moment.” Kirk moves to speak again, and Spock grabs his face to hold his mouth shut. “No, I am in control, I am able to maintain this control now, but you know that is not always the case. You… you are particularly… infuriating. Please, let me finish.” But he doesn’t speak for several minutes. Instead, his hand moves up to caress Kirk’s cheek, rubbing a thumb under a blue eye.  “You… you are such a perfect reflection of my rage.” 

Kirk turns his face into Spock’s hand. It is so warm. 

Spock seems to talk without thinking.   “Oh, you fierce, golden boy. I would have you. I would _take_ you.” He traces Kirk’s face, and for a moment Kirk thinks he will touch the points on his temple. But then his hand drops, and although Kirk makes a small sound of dismay, Spock does not reach out again. “But you are not only mine to have, do you understand? You burn so bright, you pull us all with you. All of us- Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, even Doctor McCoy. We remember those who fell in battle and we are all angry. We all want blood. Look at the life Spock’s memories have given you, and compare it to the one you have now, and you will see the differences. Nero’s arrival forced us to grow up too fast, to start this life together too soon, and it has changed us all.” Spock’s voice goes quiet and strangely formal. “And none as much as thee. Thy life has been thrown astray from the moment of thy birth, and so we are drawn to thee. We will go to the ends of the universe to avenge our ghosts. And thou will lead us. And then, some day, thou will die, and we will all be consumed by that loss, one by one, fighting for thee unto our deaths.”

“That,” says Kirk. “Is ridiculous. What kind of captain do you think I am?”

“The best kind,” says Spock. “And I will gladly follow you to this death.” He pulls back and turns away. “But I cannot be your lover.” 

Kirk looks at Spock’s profile. He sees the set of his shoulders, his jaw, his upswept eyebrows, the line of his ear. He sees how his hair is still just a little bit out of place. He sees frustration remaining, although Spock is attempting to temper this with loyalty. Kirk sees strain. He sees exhaustion. 

And none of this makes him take Spock seriously, not even for a second.

“Do you love me?” asks Kirk.

“You do not know what you are asking.” 

“Do. You. Love. Me?” asks Kirk, leaning over into Spock’s lap, punctuating each word with a tilt of his head. 

Spock turns away. “It would be best if you maintained an appropriate physical distance.” Kirk ignores him.

“You are trying to avoid my question and doing an absolutely shitty job of it.” Kirk climbs into Spock’s lap, and Spock closes his eyes. “You love me- I can feel it in you.” 

“Please,” says Spock. “Please, just go.”

“No. I am not listening to you until you answer me.”

“Go,” Spock’s voice drops so low Kirk can barely hear it. “before it is too late.”

“You are going to have to do more than that to convince me. Remember? C’mon. I know you speak _some_ Illogical Human. It’s in your genes.”

Something in Spock snaps.

“I am _not human._ ” Spock lunges forward, grabbing Kirk by both shoulders and lifting him clear of the sheets. Before Kirk even has time to react he is thrown out of the bed and across the room. He slams against the far wall and slumps to the ground, breathless and stunned. Kirk sits on the floor, mouth open, struggling for a moment to regain control of himself. Then he looks up and sees Spock standing on the other side of the bed, looking back at him. His face is impassive, although his hands are in fists. He is also totally naked.

Kirk begins to laugh.

Spock does not move.

Kirk laughs harder.

“Are you unwell?” asks Spock.

“Oh my god…” Kirk is laughing so hard he might cry. “You…oh… ha…oh my god.”

Spock folds his hands behind his back. 

“Did you just throw me out of bed?” Kirk levers himself up against the wall, then flops forward onto the bed again. “Did you just get angry at me and throw me out of bed?”

Spock is still.

Kirk gasps, smiling, then crawls across to him. “You will _never change,_ will you?” he says, his hands grasping Spock’s hips. “Come.”

“I will remain standing. I asked you to leave.”

Kirk sits on the edge of the bed, facing Spock. Spock’s legs bump against his knees. Kirk looks up at him. Spock is both confused and trying very hard not to look confused. It is adorable.

“Do you love me?”

“I think it would be best if you tried another line-“

“What, are you going to toss me across the room? Or maybe slam me up against a wall? How about you throttle me? _Again_?”

Spock shifts.

“I know you can’t lie,” says Kirk. “Just tell me. Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll leave. Tell me you do not love me and I’ll do anything you want.”

“I… it is illogical…” Spock’s voice is very quiet. Kirk leans closer.

“Spock,” says Kirk. “Look at me.” 

Spock turns down, his eyes bright. 

“Fuck logic.”

“Jim-“

Kirk leans closer, his chin on Spock’s stomach. “Fuck it.”

Spock breathes in, slowly, so slowly, then raises one hand to Kirk’s hair. “I love you.”

“That’s all there is, then,” says Kirk. 

“I will hurt you,” says Spock.

“You go ahead and try,” says Kirk.

“I will never let you go, Jim, ” says Spock, as if speaking to a child. “This is the Vulcan way. If… if we do this, if you and I become one- there can be no other. I will be…” And here words fail him, so Spock grabs Kirk’s hair and pulls his head back, exposing his throat. Spock leans down, lips to Kirk’s ear. “If you give yourself to me, you are mine always.”

“I am already yours,” says Kirk.


	10. Epilogue

In the end, Kirk’s devotion to Spock surprises even him.

It’s not that Kirk ever expected to be bored with Spock. Contrary to his own tomcat nature, he had always had a, perhaps overromanticised, idea about monogamy, and had assumed, as a matter of course, that he would someday settle down and do the things people in marriages do, whatever those are. So it’s really not surprise at himself for maintaining interest. No- Kirk is shocked, every day, by exactly how _not_ boring being with Spock is, by how utterly fascinating it all continues to be. It doesn’t follow any sort of pattern- some days are slow and quiet and full, languishing in bedsheets, soft kisses and warm mouths. Other times it is fast, Spock taking him against a wall, or bent over a desk, clothes barely off, the pace brutal and punishing. There seems to be no reason to it- just like how when sometimes one or the other of them will do something recklessly heroic and almost die they find they cannot bear to be close, and other times it happens and they cannot bear to be apart. 

The thing is, most of the time Kirk wants to have sex, Spock is busy thinking about something else, and he says no. This drives Kirk absolutely crazy. Sometimes it goes on for weeks, and he bemoans the death of his sex life loudly. During particularly long spells he has been known to resort to sulking fits. Sometimes he catches himself buying costumes and toys on shore leave and leaving them in conspicuous places. Once he even threatened to drag Spock to Bones for counseling because, seriously, no one should be able to be celibate for that long. But secretly, in a place he never lets see the light of day, Kirk loves it when Spock says no. He loves it when he has to wait for Spock to finish particularly complex problems before Spock feels he can really devote himself to fucking Kirk the way Kirk deserves to be fucked. He loves that he has found someone who can force his libido into submission when he himself has never been able to do so. 

It perhaps says something about Kirk’s maturity that he feels this way. It perhaps says something about Spock’s that he never mentions it.

Of course, Kirk thinks, it is easy enough to understand why he waits when you consider that Spock is brilliant, logical, exacting, observant, and entirely in control. And it is intoxicating to have all of that focused entirely on you. This is what occurs to Kirk now, when he is on his back on the bed, Spock leaning over him and working him open with two fingers. 

Kirk shifts his legs so he can hook his ankles behind Spock’s back, pulling him forward, urging him to hurry. Spock simply leans back, resisting, because he is a _bastard,_ but then he takes one of Kirk’s legs and pulls it to drape over his own shoulder. The move twists Kirk’s body, and Spock’s fingers dig into him mercilessly. Kirk arches as Spock touches something deep inside of him.

“ _Fuck,”_ says Kirk.

Spock raises an eyebrow. “That is the general plan.” He twists his fingers again and Kirk’s body is on fire.

“Oh god, what are you _doing?”_

“I do not think I will tell you,” says Spock, pulling out his fingers. The noise this makes is obscene. “Turn over.”

Kirk grins. “You like me this way, eh?”

Spock doesn’t answer. Kirk goes to lie on his stomach, but then Spock pulls his hips backwards until he is up on all fours. Kirk twitches his back end, flirting, then looks back down along the underside of his body. He can see his own prick, thick and heavy, leaked precome glistening on his stomach. Between his legs he can just barely glimpse the lower half of Spock’s body. Kirk can see him stroking himself, his cock standing straight out, flushed and hot and glistening with lube, and he reaches back between his thighs.

Spock seizes his wrist and holds it. “What is it you would like?”

“Want you inside me,” pants Kirk. “Now.”

“Tell me,” says Spock, his finger trailing underneath Kirk’s body. 

Kirk groans. “Want you to fill me. Want you to ride me, hard, want to be so sore I can’t sit until next week. Want to feel your balls slap against my ass. Want you to fuck me right into the bed, so hard the floor gives in.” Spock pulls back and suddenly is far too far away. “Want you to come inside of me, want to _feel_ it.”

He feels pressure at his entrance, the tip of Spock’s dick just brushing against him, and he tenses despite himself. 

Spock pauses to put a hand on Kirk’s side.“Relax, _ashayam,_ ” he whispers. “You are ready.”

“Yes,” says Kirk, and breathes in as he is breached. Spock is so hard, pushing through the hard ring of muscle, then into him and there is a slow burn and then a delicious fullness and he pushes back against it, too eager, but Spock holds him tight, careful. “Yes,” he says, and just when he thinks he can’t take another inch or another minute of waiting, Spock slides fully into place. He runs his hands down Kirk’s back, pushing his spine down so he arches, and then Kirk feels Spock move inside of him. He will never get used to that, never, doesn’t want to, wants it always to be like this, shocking and fierce and so perfect. “Oh, god, Spock, please, do it hard… I want you to fuck me _so hard_.”

“As you wish,” says Spock, and he pulls out and then slams home again and Kirk sees stars. Spock is precise- at first sliding out slow and delicious as he rubs Kirk’s back and legs, thrusting back in an inch at a time,  but then, as Kirk adjusts and opens for him, Spock fucks in faster and harder, and he knocks Kirk down to his elbows, and then Kirk has to pillow his head in his hands to keep himself upright against the force of it. And then the movements become erratic and Kirk knows that Spock is just flittering at the edge of losing control. The thought of it makes Kirk groan again, and Spock shifts inside, twisting to hit Kirk’s prostate, thrusting hard and deep and Kirk feels his orgasm building. He reaches for his cock, but Spock pushes his hand away, then pulls out. 

“No, wait, come back,” Kirk protests, but Spock grabs him by one hip and flips him over again, leans over him and kisses him fiercely, drinks him in, and his cock is wet and sliding against Kirk’s body. Kirk arches up, begging, and Spock pulls back and pushes inside of him in one long smooth motion. He has Kirk bent almost in half now, and his pace is ragged. Spock is making those noises again, has slipped into the half-Vulcan, half-Standard he uses when he is undone, and Kirk can’t stand not knowing what he is saying. “So close, Spock, please, now,” and so Spock reaches for Kirk’s face and pushes his fingers into Kirk’s mind and they are open. Kirk feels himself, and Spock, feels inside and out, feels tightness and pressure, and then Spock seizes as he comes deep inside, and it pushes Kirk over, and he whites out, shaking and yelling words he cannot possibly know.

______

Later, they are tangled in bed, clean and drowsy, and Kirk looks at Spock and grins.

“Can you imagine, if you had just gotten your head out of your ass, we could have been doing this ages ago,” says Kirk.

“I hardly think my reservations were inappropriate,” says Spock.

“I don’t mean the ‘Oh no poor Jim is all mentally scrambled and maybe I’m just too much for him to deal with’ part. I mean the part before that, when I was hitting on you and you were being obtuse.”

“As I recall, you are the one who misunderstood our initial encounter.”

“Leave off the Vulcan kissing thing, okay? I meant the whole missed signals part.”

“I do not, as you say, ‘miss signals.’ I am both observant and logical.”

“Yeah, look, Vulcan superpowers aren’t what they are cracked up to be. I was waiting for you to make a move for weeks. Months. A _year_.”

“Ah, yes, well,” says Spock, and Kirk could swear if he were human he would be laughing, “I had perhaps a bit of… fun.”

“Fun?” says Kirk.

“Far be it from me to correct you on your form, seeing as your seduction skills are, by your own admission, legendary, but perhaps in the future you should be a little less obvious.”

“Less… obvious?” Kirk sits up because now he is offended. “What do you mean _obvious?”_

Spock tilts his head. “You were desperate. You… I think the somewhat improbable term is _threw yourself._ At me.”

“I… I had to do something! You barely noticed I was there!”

“Far from it.”

“Ok, I don’t mean you literally didn’t see me. I mean… look, you were not getting the hint, at all…” Kirk trails off. “Oh my god, you’re still laughing at me.”

Spock raises an eyebrow. “I would not laugh at you, Jim.”

“I know what the raised eyebrow means!” Kirk considers throwing a pillow at Spock but then it occurs to him that Spock is just trying to avoid the subject. “Tell me why you are laughing.”

 Spock clears his throat. “You continue to labor under some misapprehensions about when it was that I noticed your overtures. I have always been aware of your intentions. But I have also always been aware of your reputation.”

Kirk frowns.

“I am simply telling you that I knew you to be a … friendly and tactile person.” Kirk thinks maybe he hasn’t given enough credit to how well Spock treads the line between being polite and being bitchy. “So for the first month I ignored you, because it did not seem prudent to engage in a physical relationship. Then when you did not give up, I thought perhaps I should talk to you directly. But then I found it… pleasing, that you spent so much time with me, and that you would go to such lengths to do so.  I found that I enjoyed your company and also wished to consider a deeper connection. I then became curious to see what you would do if I waited.” 

“Waited?” Kirk has a sudden urge to cover his face with his hands.

“I have to admit, I never expected you would stoop to parading around in the halls half-naked asking me to wrestle. You do sometimes surprise me, though.”

“You- you _played me.”_

“I am sure I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Bullshit. You fucking played me.”

“Jim, I do not see why I am the one at fault here. You were making an absolute fool of yourself.”

“I did no such thing!”

“After the wrestling incident you started wearing increasingly impractical clothing-“

“All regulation.”

“That green tunic with the low cut front?”

“Classic dress uniform.”

“It was… fascinating.”

“You shut up, right now, you absolute freak.”

“Yessir, _Captain_.”

Kirk pushes him out of the bed, then follows him to the floor with a thump.


End file.
